School board hopefuls vow change

Some of the new candidates vying for a seat on the Halifax regional school board are vowing to make fundamental changes to the way the board operates.

Commitment to constituents, more independent thinking and greater openness are among the wishes of prospective trustees for the new board, which will be voted in during the municipal elections on Oct. 20.

But those changes won’t happen on Oct. 21.

“The board is a beastly system, so change doesn’t come rapidly,” said Dave Wright, a candidate in District 8. “I don’t think you could get into the board and flip things upside down. Change would have to be incremental.”

Wright, who lives in Lower Sackville, said his experiences dealing with the board during a school review process were “frustrating” and “disenfranchising.”

He said trustees were instructed to remain at arm’s-length from the school and affected parents during that process — precisely, he says, when the community feels most in need of having its voice heard.

“One of the things that I want to see, whether I get in or not is for the entire board to get back to being an elected official, to representing their constituents and being a conduit for their constituents to get their voices heard in the board.”

Wright’s concerns echo those of David Cameron, a departing board member who wrote a letter to his fellow trustees in August condemning their collective unwillingness to challenge the status quo and the edicts sent down from the Education Department.

Cameron said the board

doesn’t pursue its own goals often enough but rather is stifled by the agenda and expectations of the department and school board staff.

“Far too often it’s, ‘Well, this is what the department requires, or this is what the minister wants,’” Cameron said in an interview Wednesday. “I think there should be more questioning. It’s not a matter of saying no, necessarily, but questioning can often lead to improvements in what’s being proposed.”

Cameron also criticized board members’ “shameful” cession of authority to the administration in budgetary matters. He said after his letter was publicized, he received responses from educators and school board members across the country expressing the same concerns.

District 5 candidate Christy Linders said she hopes trustees will question staff reports and recommendations.

“A recommendation from staff is a recommendation,” Linders said. “It certainly has a lot of weight because you’re going to hire people that are good and you’re going to trust what they say. But you also need to look at what the people in your community say. You also have to make your own decisions and research before you make your decision.”

Wade Marshall was chairman of the Halifax board when the province fired it in December 2006 and replaced it with retired civil servant Howard Windsor until the October 2008 election.

Marshall is now running against Wright in District 8, and he said he won’t be shy about speaking up, even if his wishes are against those of staff.

“I’m not very passive, and if I see something that’s worth going for, I’m going to encourage board members to go for it,” Marshall said.

“If the (current) board succumbed to the wish list of senior staff, that’s the board’s fault.”

The chairman of the Halifax board, Irvine Carvery, said the board’s hands are often tied because of budget constraints.

“Basically, what we were doing in the last two years was trying to keep the status quo, trying to maintain our resource and support at the classroom level,” Carvery said.

“We didn’t have the opportunity to initiate new business-plan goals, so that was unfortunate.”